FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C depict ABS, yoke and side views of a conventional magnetic recording head 10. The conventional magnetic recording transducer 10 may be a part of a merged head including the write transducer 10 and a read transducer (not shown). Alternatively, the magnetic recording head may be a write head including only the write transducer 10. Although termed a yoke view, the view shown in FIG. 1B is taken along the surface parallel to the ABS a distance x1 from the ABS. This surface is depicted as a dotted line in FIG. 1C.
The main pole 20 resides on an underlayer 12 and includes sidewalls 22 and 24. The sidewalls 22 and 24 of the conventional main pole 20 form an angle α0 with the down track direction at the ABS and an angle α1 with the down track direction at the distance x1 from the ABS. As can be seen in FIGS. 1A and 1B, portions of the main pole 20 recessed from the ABS in the stripe height direction are wider in the cross track direction than at the ABS. In addition, the angle between the sidewalls 22 and 24 and the down track direction increases. Thus, α1 is greater than α0. For example, if α0 is on the order of 13°, then α1 may be 25°.
Although the conventional magnetic recording head 10 functions, there are drawbacks. In particular, the conventional magnetic recording head 10 may not perform sufficiently at higher recording densities. For example, the write field of the conventional main pole 20 may not have a sufficiently high magnitude write field to meet particular standards. Accordingly, what is needed is a method for improving the performance of a magnetic recording head.